Very very busy

Since my last post I have been super busy. Life just seems to be one ongoing cycle of work and study. I can barely keep up with my assignments. It has definitely come to that hard part of the year.

Most recently I have been involved in packing WorkSafe bags that will be given out to guests at events during WorkSafe Week at the end of this month. This task is a repetitive one and also very time consuming. It requires me to pack specially made WorkSafe tagged bags with posters, pens, highlighters, stickers, note pads and other documents.

These are some of the promotional items I have been packing into WorkSafe bags

I have also been busy stuffing hundreds of large envelopes with promotional material like the ones I just mentioned, and other important forms. The forms include evaluation sheets, invitations to the forum and breakfast held during WorkSafe week, and other information pamphlets. These packs are currently being sent out to organisations that have registered to be involved in Safe Work Australia week. The organisations will be taking part by conducting certain Safety and Occupational health activities within their workplaces. Some possible activities include holding a safety trivia night, awarding safety certificates, practice emergency drills or holding a barbeque or morning tea to recognise workmates who actively contribute to safety. There are lots more options organisations can choose from.

Some of the Safe Work Australia Week packs

Another task I have now finished is finding and gathering pictures that will be used to create the slide show component of the presentation I have written. This involved me looking through files of thumbnail pictures and picking out ones I thought were appropriate or matched what was being talked about in the speech. These pictures were then taken off disks in JPEG form. A JPEG is a digital image stored as a file. I also screen grabbed pictures off a DVD about WorkSafe. Another source I used for pictures was old WorkSafe posters out of the archive. I had to attach the pictures to the wall with blue tack and photograph them one by one. All the pictures have been edited and converted into the right formats now. Corporate Theatre, the event production specialist, will be putting all the pictures together in a slideshow.

Some tasks, like the one described above, may sound simple. However, taking the pictures of old posters proved to be quite a job! Firstly, I had to figure out how to use the camera I was given. This was no ordinary digital camera. When I tried to take a photo the camera repeatedly flashed error. I changed the lens of the camera and the error no longer came up. The only problem was the lens I changed it to would not allow me to zoom in and out. So I had to stand a specific distance away from the wall to capture the poster. Also I had to take these photos in a light room because use of the flash would create glare in the photo since the posters were laminated.

This is one of the posters I photographed

I have also finished writing summaries for organisations that have won WorkSafe plan Certificates or WorkSafe Awards. These summaries will appear in the program for the annual Safety Achievers Dinner. They give a brief background on what the organisation does and some recent or effective safety initiatives they have made. This was a drawn out process because it required me to get in contact with the safety representatives of each company and for them to send me relevant information. Some people would promptly reply to my emails, while others, after being called and chased up a number of times, would not send the information. I got there in the end. I enjoyed this task because I learnt about lots of different organisations and what sorts of safety initiatives and procedures they would have to carry out in order to win such a prestigious award or certificate.

I have noticed there is always a lot of talk around the office about budget, especially when preparing and organising events. This has come as no surprise to me after learning about budgeting during my public relations studies at Curtin Bentley campus. Budget is always kept in mind when talking about printing, mailing, hiring experts, speakers and entertainers and so on. After being assigned the budgeting section in a number of assignments over the years I now realise the importance of tabling and sorting funds. Since I am working in a government department, using taxpayers’ money, it must be transparent and able to account for all money spent. This is especially kept in mind when organising events like the Annual Safety Achievers Gala dinner, when it is easy to keep on spending and adding to the glamour of the evening planned.

I am also asked to answer calls when there may be no one else available. This still scares me because I am scared I am going to be unable to help. Most of the time I just take a message and then send an email to the appropriate person so they can call the person back and provide them with the information they need.

That is what I have been up to lately in my public relations placement.